Bloodlines Online

The firsf step of every dungeon run was to destroy the skeletons that were at the start.

As with the previous difficulty increase he assumed he would be fighting more skeletons than before, or at least more difficult skeletons.

What he wasn’t prepared for was an arrow striking him in the shoulder before he could even use his mana sense to find the skeleton.

It dealt over half of his health in one shot so he had to attack back before he was slain since there was no cover in this cave.

When he saw the skeleton deep in the dark depths of the tunnel he cast a trio of nova needles to destroy it.

With the help of his two unique items he could feel how easy controlling shadowfire mana was, it was a derivative of shadow mana after all.

The Voidbeast fang also seemed to make his projectiles sharper.

He wasn’t sure how it all worked yet as he had been to excited to try out the next difficulty of the dungeon.

Now he had to face the consequences.

His spells took the skeleton out but before he could catch any breath he saw another approaching.

Then another.

The loud spellcasting he had caused was alerting the others to his presence which would normally not be a problem as the skeletons only seemed to guard their positions.

This time?

He had over a dozen skeleton warriors and archers attacking him.

Using his nova needle he was able to cause some aoe damage but normally the spell was meant to release its damage internally.

When he skeletons were harmed by the explosive power he would aim for those that were close enough to catch others in the aoe.

He ended up cornered while attacking them and had to resort to his mana shield strategy and his unique item.

He figured out that with the Voidbeast fang he could channel the mana into it and recreate the death mark that Shade had used and unlike the daggers he would try this with the fang wouldn’t be harmed by it!

Mana was normally dangerous to wield directly and he didn’t know why but with these items he could control the shadow element without any harm to himself.

With this dagger/wand thing he would be able to fight in close quarters without fear as long as he could sustain his hp.

After strenuous battle where he dismembered the skeletons he finally defeated them.

In the nightmare mode it had recommended players be lv130 before they began and he was feeling that level difference as he had to use every last bit of mana and nearly die in the process just to defeat these basic skeletons.

The pain was worth it though.

With a massive level difference he gained significantly more experience and with the dungeons bonus xp effect he gained 200% more than that.

He had easily leveled up five times in that fight alone and now had free reign in absorbing all of that potent mana.

The mana that he absorbed was finally able to move his affinity along to the next percent and at this rate he felt that he could get to 100% in just this one run.

~

Deeper in the dungeon he was able to see the boss room, as he had gone deeper he found that the mana became denser.

He was at 96% affinity when he touched the door to push it open.

’Why were changes just to the aggression level of the skeletons the only change in here? Even the ambush skeletons were the same as before.’

These were his thoughts as he saw the magic circle glow across the door.

Next thing he knew he was at the entrance of the dungeon again.

’Dammit.’

~

After another attempt he was back at the door, his second attempt had successfully brought his affinity to 100% and given him even more levels.

He went to the door and used his mana sense to figure out what he could find.

His mana sense revealed a bright spell circle on the door so he took a few steps back to try destroying it.

When he cast his nova needle he got to see what had killed him before, dense mana released in a wave that tore his body apart.